30 September 2016

iris' birthday was the 22nd and cousin carol's three days later, both people i miss more than any other who have left the scene to date --- bob and i weren't terribly close, mainly because i found him a little fearsome when i first met him in athens, probably in 1972, but we had a lot of friends in common and i soon found out what an excellent person he was --- it was always good to run into him on the belt line or in the botanical garden or wherever --- he died yesterday, and his passing congealed the melancholy of the last few days ---

so i spent a couple of hours this morning walking and thinking about dead friends

27 September 2016

last night, watching the "debate" between hillz and dumbfuk, i felt like the audience watching "springtime for hitler" in the producers --- jesus christ, what a mess! "surreal" best describes the spectacle --- i have to believe that this country could never elect that buffoon after last night

14 September 2016

it's been the hottest summer on record --- with an ungodly number of days with highs above 90 and lows that never dropped below the low 70s, usually with high humidity --- in terms of weather, it's been a shitty summer ---

three and a half hours at audc this evening, almost too much blather to bear --- i am probably kinda testy when i actually speak up, but it can't be helped i guess, since one of my personal failings is an inability to suffer fools gladly, as they say --- i told the ex. dir. tonight that i was counting on the december meeting being my last --- six years is enough

12 September 2016

You’re expecting some kind of obligatory 9-11 post, aren’t you?Here it is, but you’re not gonna like it.15 years ago today 19 shitheads attacked America.They killed 3000 of us. And then … America got its revenge for 9-11.Yes we did. Many times over. We killed them. We killed them all. We killed their families. We killed their wives and their kids and all their neighbors. We killed whole nations that weren’t even involved just to make goddamned sure. We bombed their cities into rubble. We burned down their countries.They killed 3000 of us, we killed 300,000 of them or more.8000 of us came home in body bags, but we got our revenge. Yes we did.We’re still here. They aren’t.We win. USA! USA! USA!Right?You goddamned right. We. Win.Except…Every year on this day we bath in the blood of that day yet again. We watch the towers fall over and over. It’s been 15 goddamned years, but we just can’t get enough. We’ve just got to watch it again and again.It’s funny how we never show those videos of the bombs falling on Baghdad today. Or the dead in the streets of Afghanistan. We got our revenge, but we never talk about that today. No, we just sit and watch the towers fall yet again.Somewhere out there on the bottom of the sea are the rotting remains of the evil son of bitch who masterminded the attack. It took a decade, but we hunted him down and put a bullet in his brain. Sure. We got him. Right? That’s what we wanted. that’s what our leaders promised us, 15 years ago today.And today those howling the loudest for revenge shrug and say, well, yeah, that. That doesn’t matter, because, um, yeah, the guy in the White House, um, see, well, he’s not an American, he’s the enemy see? He’s not doing enough. So, whatever. What about that over there? And that? And…Yeah.15 years ago our leaders, left and right, stood on the steps of the Capitol and gave us their solemn promise to work together, to stand as one, for all Americans.How’d that promise work out?How much are their words worth? Today, 15 years later? It’s 15 years later and we’re STILL afraid. We’re still terrorized. Still wallowing in conspiracy theories and peering suspiciously out of our bunkers at our neighbors. Sure we won. Sure we did. We became a nation that tortures our enemies — and our own citizens for that matter. We’re a nation of warrantless wiretaps and rendition and we’ve gotten used to being strip searched in our own airports. And how is the world a better place for it all?And now we’re talking about more war, more blood.But, yeah, we won. Sure. You bet.Frankly, I have had enough of 9-11. Fuck 9-11. I’m not going to watch the shows. I’m not going to any of the memorials. I’m not going to the 9-11 sales at Wal-Mart. I don’t want to hear about 9-11. I for damned sure am not interested in watching politicians of either party try to out 9-11 each other. I’m tired of this national 9-11 PTSD. I did my bit for revenge, I went to war, I’ll remember the dead in my own time in my own way.I’m not going to shed a damned tear today.We got our revenge. Many times over, for whatever good it did us.I’m going to go to a picnic and enjoy my day. Enjoy this victory we’ve won.I suggest you do the same.
Nathan Wellman is a Los Angeles-based journalist, author, and playwright

11 September 2016

an absolutely wonderful event to kick off art on the beltline, the seventh annual lantern parade hosted by the krewe of the grateful gluttons --- there were 60,000 last year, god knows how many this year, but it was a lot ---

broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime― mark twain

truly, what of good

ever have prophets brought to men?

craft of many words,

only through

evil your message speaks.

seers bring aye

terror, so to keep

men afraid.

―

aeschylus

he cannot be a gentleman which loveth not a dog.

john northbrooke, c. 1570

Each of us is all the sums he has not counted: subtract us into nakedness and night again, and you shall see begin in Crete four thousand years ago the love that ended yesterday in Texas.

The seed of our destruction will blossom in the desert, the alexin of our cure grows by a mountain rock, and our lives are haunted by a Georgia slattern, because a London cutpurse went unhung. Each moment is the fruit of forty thousand years. The minute-winning days, like flies, buzz home to death, and every moment is a window on all time.

I never meant to say that the Conservatives are generally stupid. I meant to say that stupid people are generally Conservative. I believe that is so obviously and universally admitted a principle that I hardly think any gentleman will deny it.

john stuart mill in a letter to conservative mp sir john pakington (march 1866)